


Arabesque

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Desert, Enemies to Lovers, Love/Hate, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Insomnia is lost to the desert sands of Lucis when Niflheim lays siege. Gladio steals the Crown Prince out into the wastes to escape capture. There is nothing but sand and sun and despair. Until a stranger with braided hair and a crooked grin finds them in the desert.





	1. wasteland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CkyKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CkyKing/gifts).



> Next up on the gift circuit, the great and terrible threesome returns!

The desert sun was oppressive. It never used to be.

Gladiolus had spent most of his life staring out across the golden sea. Children born in the sands swathed beyond the walls of Insomnia knew fire as their first feeling, before they even knew the softness of their own mothers’ touch. The sun was another parent – a deity even, as they were all taught growing up. It was the first force that welcomed children of the desert into the endless crests of platinum gold at dawn and blood red at sunset. It tempered the perilously soft flesh of newborn babies so that they could survive and thrive in the vast desert sea.

The sun was a companion. His patron. He knew its rise and its fall as intimately as his own breath. He judged everything by it – time, weather, danger.  As generous of a guardian as it had been for him all his life, the sun over Lucis could be just as cruel to travelers that didn’t respect it.

He’d seen men burnt for their arrogance, passing in and out of the Citadel. Chiefs and traders with crooked smiles and crisped-black skin. Men of power and wealth and so much greed that it blinded them to even the sovereignty of their King. Men who assumed praises and platitudes for their abuses of business and cheating their people to stay fat and fed behind the walls of their marble mansions.

Gladiolus had never been certain if it was coincidence or legend that scorched the dishonest heirs and scions of the silk trade that thought themselves cleverer than the King he served. Long had the Caelum dynasty been foretold as disciples of the sun first, before they were sovereigns over their fellow man.

Thousand-year-old stories told that the sun was a great crystal, filled with all the light of the world and cast into the heavens by the Old Gods to brighten the days for their children, humanity. Stories told of the Chosen, a human selected by the Old Gods to wield the sun in times of worldly crisis, to intervene on the gods’ behalf since a single touch of theirs on Eos could only save man by destroying them. The gods were too strong to touch humanity so, they had the sun craft them one human strong enough to withstand the astral power of the sun to banish wickedness and cleanse the darkness should Eos itself ever be threatened.

Gladiolus believed it to be true when he watched for years how the sun could expose a slaver by branding his skin with red boils of outrage. How the bandits he fought off with his shield-brothers on the Gate Guard were made mad with heat-poison for their bloodlust.

The humble and the just were never burned by the sun. The widowed woman, begging for justice on her wife’s murderer, was gently bronzed and warmed to dry her tears in her grief. The muddy-faced teens caught stealing in the bazaar, starved-pale skin pulled over bones like mummified corpses, were spared the black burns of the sun’s scorn.

Whether it was a flame or a stone in the sky, Lucis lived by the sun’s light, and it demanded nothing else in return but respect for all it bestowed upon them.

He wondered if he’d lost its favor. He wondered if it hated him now, for failing to keep its favored sons safe, and that was why it felt so much hotter than it did when he had once grown strong beneath it. He wondered if it was trying to burn him for his failure. He wondered if he would turn just as black and boiled as the cowards that earned the King’s ire when they kneeled for more coin to fill their own coffers before filling the bellies of their people.

Or he wondered if it was just so hot because there was nowhere left to go to shade them from it. Maybe the legend wasn’t true. Maybe the sun wasn’t a harbinger of fire and justice. Maybe it was just that he always had a place to go to shield him from its heat at the end of every day. Maybe the heat just hurt less if he had a home he could escape it to.

They didn’t have that now. The great, marble palisades of Insomnia had been breached. Burned by black tar and torch fire. Raised to the ground by the usurping forces of Niflheim, a culture of traitors and thieves with weapons the likes of which Lucis had never seen.

The defenders had their magic and their ballistas and their catapults; great, charmed swords and mighty shields. But Niflheim had metal monsters and the dark, twisted creatures of the far West. Automaton beasts recalled in campfire stories to frighten naughty children back into the sun’s grace before they wandered too far and got burned. Black and silver skeletons with hollow red eyes like ancient pharaohs dragged up from the long-dead earth to wreak their vengeance on the kings and sultans that sat atop their thrones.

Insomnia was left in ruins. The vibrant noises of the bazaar, bursting with deep azure silks and pears like emeralds and glittering with hanging glasses that filled the cool, insulated air with rainbow stars was silenced. The beautiful mosaics that had tantalized his imagination as a child across the domed roofs of the Citadel were smashed. The crystal pools and lush interior gardens where he remembered chasing and splashing his friends with laughter and mischief were burned to nothing.

And the King’s blood stained the ruins left behind by Nilfheim’s avarice. The kind old man, a benevolent king and a wise guide to sons that weren’t even his own, cut down by the crooked scimitar of a fallen knight.

He missed home. He missed his faith in the sun to protect them from the greed and injustice of all those that sought to exploit them.

As much as he missed it though, he knew his despair was nothing compared to Noct’s.

The Prince stared across the endless, russet hills in the falling light, huddled in the square patch of shade they’d erected with their sheets and tent poles. His eyes had grown as hard as the jewels that used to adorn his skin when he was forced to make his appearances in the royal court. Silver bangles and sashes encrusted with sapphires. A chain of blue diamond chips weaved through his hair like stars at midnight. Treasures that had been looted on behalf of the Niflheim fortune, no doubt.

Gladio had managed to steal a few handfuls of gold and some loose gems while he was stealing the Prince out of the city before he could be found and meet the same fate as his father. They’d either kill Noct or enslave him, make him into a whipping boy or a bed warmer, he didn’t know what. All he did know was that both their fathers were dead and the two of them would be next if they didn’t run.

Noctis hated him for that. He wanted to stay and fight, avenge his father. He’d screamed and railed against Gladio as he dragged him from the palace, until Gladio had no choice but to knock him out and throw him over his shoulder to take him away from their burning city.

That was days ago. And his jaw still ached from the punch to his face when Noctis woke up miles out into the sands. But it didn’t hurt as much as his heart did to see Noct so cold. Even under the blistering desert sun, Noctis was a statue of ice, still and silent in the shade.

“It’ll be nightfall soon,” Gladio informed him, if only for the sake of filling the silence with some sound. “It’ll cool off then.”

“Figure that out all by yourself?”

Gladio ground his teeth down on a harsher retort. Somehow, that made Noctis angrier. His eyes flashed when Gladio was silent. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, a dark silk wall between them that had never been there before.

He wouldn’t get angry, Gladio had promised himself. If Noctis was angry, Gladio couldn’t be. He had to think for the both of them. He couldn’t afford to let his rage get the better of him when they were in such dire straits. They were on foot in the desert with a limited water supply and even less food. They had a small fortune to buy provisions with, maybe even purchase a chocobo for the rest of their journey, but first, they needed to find a village for that. They needed to find _anywhere_ for that. They needed to find people, shelter, water before the heat drove Noctis mad enough to kill Gladio and bury him in the middle of the desert.

A delusion of the heat, that… he hoped.

Gladio ducked underneath the small bit of shade, his knee knocking into Noct’s. The Prince didn’t move to accommodate him, hugging his arms tighter around his legs to protect his own space.

“We’ll get a few hours of sleep and start moving again before sunrise,” Gladio told him. “We can’t be more than another day’s trek from the scrublands around Liede.”

He let a drip of water splash over his tongue from his canteen before bottling up what remained. He gave Noctis a once-over, checking that his skin was covered for the night. He was fairer than Gladio, having lived in the shielded shade of the Citadel for most of his life. Even when he did go out into the sands beyond the protected city, it was made certain that he wore long-sleeved tunics and pants and boots and stayed covered from head to toe. Which Noctis always seemed to prefer, even if his health didn’t depend on it.

For a desert prince, he had always run cold. The chilling blood of his slain father didn’t help to warm him now.

Noctis dropped onto his side upon the blankets without a word to Gladio, back to him and fists coiling into the sand-blown silks to keep them from giving him another bruise.

Gladio pressed a thumb to the receding mark, huffing in annoyance – at Noct, at the Nifs, at the sun, at himself. They should never have been in this position. He should have been more prepared, they all should have been. Any invader, no matter how advanced, should never have gotten so close to the city. He was strong enough to fight a behemoth off the walls, but he couldn’t handle a swarm of daemons? People-shaped cadavers that were hardly even as tall as him?

He should have been better. And he shouldn’t hate Noctis for hating him when he hated himself, too.

Gladio laid back on the covers, turning his own back to Noct’s.

He was shocked that he slept more than he was shocked by waking up. His thoughts ran wild with hurt and anger, burning him up from the inside-out, even as the sunlight faded into the night. The abrupt chill of moonrise numbed his mind into just enough quiet for sleep to sneak over him. His head was all noise again when he snapped awake.

He felt the absence of Noctis at his back like a hand on his shoulder. There had been no sound or motion to indicate Noctis had left. Or Gladio was an even worse Shield to the Prince than he already thought. He allowed himself one curse under his breath – “fucking idiot” – then rushed to his feet, casting his gaze out into the sands, turned a sharp silver in the moonlight. There was no sign of Noctis on the unblemished horizon. When the distance failed to illuminate the haze clotting his skull, Gladio turned his senses closer to camp.

He wasn’t expecting footprints. Not within the windblown hills, where the cables of searing air blasted the loose earth as smooth as panes of glass. And yet, when he searched the nest of sand around their little fort, he found a long string of boot-shaped imprints. Fresh; had to be if they hadn’t been blown away. And urgently bidding Gladio to follow them.

Because there were _two_ sets of prints.

Gladio grabbed his sword, tossing the scabbard to the side as he raced along the tracks, legs pumping up clouds of sand as he ran.

They’d been followed. The enemy had followed them, hunted them down, _they had Noct_. Noct, who he was supposed to protect. Noct, who they would ruin and break apart for daring to defy them. Noct, who would fight so hard to take back what was stolen from him and be brutalized for his bravery.

How did they find them? They couldn’t have followed them, he would have known! He would have seen them! He was always looking back, always looking _everywhere._ There was nowhere to hide in the desert, and that went both ways.

Unless it was more daemon magic like at the Wall. Unless the Nifs had even more terrible forces under their command that could conceal themselves in bare environments. A dozen nightmarish products of magic and metal manufactured themselves in his mind as he climbed the gilded crest of sand.

He imagined that he would see Noctis trapped in the icy vices of those man-shaped monsters when he reached the top of the hill. He imagined he’d see Noct bound in chains, dragged between burnt-boned skeletons with his pale skin already bruised and split bloody for fighting back. He imagined he’d see Noct _dead_ , a china corpse in black and blue silks and veins of crimson blood across his cheeks, a hundred metallic limbs and broken swords scattered around him in the grains of sands with all their absent mercy for the lost prince.

He imagined the worst so he would be prepared. So he could cut down the vile puppets of black magic trying to take his prince back to a fate of degradation or execution. So he wouldn’t break like a dropped pot and dig himself a grave in the sands next to his murdered lord if he found him dead.

He imagined the worst and was rewarded with relief as he vaulted over the sands and immediately heard the rough roars and curses of Noctis fighting. The electric current of adrenaline bolted through Gladio, lifting his heavy steps higher from the sand as he charged downhill.

Noctis had an intruder on the defense, matching the man’s pair of kukris with his own pair of daggers. And it was a _man_ that challenged Noctis, thank the sun. One man, all in black, his face covered beneath hood and scarf. Gladio would _happily_ take a lone assassin over a swarm of those things the Nifs commanded like soldiers.

As Gladio drew nearer, he noticed that, while the man’s knives were raised, they never struck back at Noctis. The Prince hammered away at the crooked steel, the clang of metal pillowing into the mounds of sands. Underneath the crisp hiss of steel, Gladio could just make out a steady stream of short, coarse words muffled by the assailant’s linens, all in different languages.

Gladio shouted across the sands, distracting the array of multilingual cursing just enough for Noctis to weave his blades beneath the kukris and disarm him. With a swift sweep of his legs, the man was on his back and Noct was on him, crossing his knives over his throat and forcing him to yield.

“Gettin’ lazy, Noct,” Gladio barked in laughter. “You should have had him before I was down the hill.”

Noctis flickered a glare at him. Gladio slowed his approach and tightened his grip on his sword. Right. Couldn’t even stop being mad at him to celebrate a victory. Brat.

“Go back to sleep,” Noctis mumbled. “This wasn’t worth getting up for.”

“So you _do_ speak Lucian!” the trapped man beneath him said. “Six’s steaming shit, why the hell have I been trying ten different languages, then? What part of ‘I’m not here to hurt you’ got lost in translation?”

“The part where you shouldn’t even be out here,” Noctis hissed, pressing his daggers down.

The stranger’s eyes flashed, as pale as the moonlight above them. Quicker than either could react, the man gripped Noct’s wrists, pushing the daggers up and rolling himself over to pin him to the sands. Gladio had his scimitar to the back of the man’s neck in an instant. Noctis kicked and squirmed underneath the stranger’s weight, glaring hot blue pikes up at him and trying to wrench his wrists free to carve him up with his daggers in retaliation.

“Back off of him!” Gladio bellowed. “ _Now!_ Or by the sun’s grace, I will take your head!”

“By the…? _Six_ , it’s by your sun’s damn grace that I’m here, idiots! If you would just shut up…”

“You shut up!” Noctis screamed up at him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You killed my father!”

“I worked for your father…”

“Bullshit!”

“Noct, _shut up_!”

Noctis’ wrath shot up to Gladio, a rabid rage searing into his skin for daring to think he could command him. Gladio swallowed the sour feeling that left in the pit of his stomach, focusing on the man beneath his sword.

“Talk. Now.”

“Your uncle sent me. Leonis, the Immortal, from out of Cavaugh. Your friends arrived there from Insomnia a few days past. Ignis? And Prompto. They said you were still alive, that they saw you escape the city. Cor sent me out here to look for you.”

“The Immortal sent just one man out into the desert to look for two fugitives?” Gladio laughed in disbelief. “The hell did he expect you to find us? On a whim and a dream?”

“Wings, not a whim.”

The stranger jerked his head up as a shadow passed across the sands. Gladio chanced a glance up, finding the silhouette of a bird circling the fringes of the moon. Below him, the stranger slowly unwound his fingers from around Noct’s wrists, leaning off of him with his palms turned out. Noctis continued to glare at him, but didn’t raise his daggers against him. Gladio eased his blade off of his neck, keeping the stranger at the tip as he backed away.

The man stretched out his arm and, like a magnet, the bird above alighted along his forearm in a whisper of feathers. An owl, glossy white and with two tufted horns of black, swiveled its head towards them, its eyes an icy blue. The bird’s stare made Noct’s breath hitch, sitting up in the sand to stare back.

“Is… Is that Pryna?”

“Oh, good! He said you might recognize her. Glad she gets a better welcome than I did. Although I will say, as far as first meetings go, this is not the worst one I’ve had.”

The stranger pulled down his scarf and pushed back his hood, shaking out sand from a tangle of dark braids before crooking a smile at them.

“Name’s Nyx. I’m here to take you home.”


	2. long sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyx was... a piece of work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Ficmas, Q! I'm dragging your ass back into hell because _holiday cheer._

Nyx was a piece of work if ever Gladio had seen one.

As if his first impression hadn’t been bad enough, he didn’t exactly inspire confidence thereafter, either. He was a cocky son of a bitch. Felt like he knew every little thing about the desert that had swallowed up and scalded every other man who walked its sands with such arrogance before him.

It was because he had Pryna. That was cheating. The messenger was a failsafe against drying up and dying in the desert. It was easy enough to find shelter from sandstorms and know which way was north or south when you had a bird’s eye view to help you.

If he liked Nyx for anything, it was that his presence made Gladio and Noctis agree on something, at last. They weren’t sure that they trusted him, Pryna or no Pryna. While the spirit was a comfort of proof as to Nyx’s loyalties, it was the man’s personality and his methods that didn’t inspire as much trust.

He didn’t respect the desert. He wasn’t awed by it or feared it like the people of Lucis did. He sauntered right through it as if it were as plain as a city street. As if he would spot his neighbor passing by at any given moment to wave and say good morning to. He was as casual about it as if it were his own home. Gladio thought that was more crazy than commendable.

Perhaps the desert was his home. Perhaps he’d lived out here all his life, and was only called upon to do the royal family’s bidding now. He didn’t talk much about himself, although he did plenty of talking. There was never a silent moment between them as they sloughed across the sands. He had a chocobo, thank the sun, and they would trade a few treks on it every so often. Gladio insisted on walking the whole way and giving Noctis his turns. If it was earning him any more favor in getting back into his good graces, he couldn’t tell.

Nyx talked about Cavaugh, where they were going, and how their friends had made it there. He talked about how Cor had marched into the village like he owned the place and how he’d almost been stoned for it because the people there did not take kindly to royal interference. He told them how Ignis had followed shortly after Cor to smooth things over between the Marshal and the villagers. He told them how Prompto spent most of their waiting there entertaining the children of the village with his trinkets from the Crown City that the poorer people of Cavaugh had never seen before. He was the real ambassador between the two worlds, endearing himself to the people for all of their sakes and preventing any bloodshed between them.

If they ever distrusted how genuine Nyx’s aid was, his accounts of Prompto were too accurate to deny that he had actually seen their comrades. When he talked about Prompto, Gladio could see Noct’s frosty reserve thaw just a little bit. He saw his white knuckle grip on the chocobo’s reins loosen the more Nyx assured him with his rambling stories that his friends were okay. That he’d seen them with his own eyes. That they were alive and unscathed and there were still people worth escaping the city for.

Sometimes, Gladio felt his eyes slide over to him, but every time he looked to meet them, they were elsewhere again. He didn’t know if he was on the path to earning Noct’s forgiveness, now that at least _someone_ else had survived Insomnia’s fall. He had no idea if he even wanted it. The guilt of leaving the King for dead would never lessen in his heart, he was certain of that. He was sure it would always curdle raw in Noct’s, too. But they still had people to fight for after all. Both of their fathers would have wanted them to keep going for that.

As ingratiating as Nyx’s voice could be after hours of walking and hearing nothing but him talk, his amiable nature was a balm for Gladio and Noctis, he had to admit that much. He cut through the tension between them like a thin string. Between his inane chatter and the soothing addition of their animal companions, things felt smoother between them. Not mended, most likely never – there would always be this wound between them – but either one of them could add into Nyx’s conversation without scoffing at one another. That was progress.

Nyx could cook, too. And he had far more food on him than Gladio had managed to pilfer from the royal pantries on their mad dash from the falling city. While they were hardly dining on the lush banquets of Lucian decadence fit for the royal family, it was better than what Gladio could cook up in a tiny pot simmering over a tinier fire.

When they stopped to camp for the night, Nyx would whip up deep golden soups, warm as sunlight to heat them through the cold desert nights. Noctis used to be a stingy eater at the palace, but whether it was by necessity of circumstance or Nyx’s mastery of an iron kettle, he gobbled down every bowl presented to him each night without a cursory sniff.

The man had come prepared. His chocobo was a hardy beast, feathers dyed a paler yellow than their usual golden color to better ward off the heat and blend with the sands, should wary eyes, Nif or not, be stalking them on their journey. The chocobo’s tack was light as leather could be made – Gladio could see Cor’s purse in that. The less weight of the saddle allowed for Nyx to pack on more essentials without weighing the bird down to exhaustion.

He had a bedroll and some blankets and the materials for a tent to house all three of them. He had pots and pans bound in cloth to keep them from clanging against the chocobo’s stride. He had satchels of food and three canteens of water. And he had weapons, both sheathed in custom slots on the chocobo’s saddle for mounted combat and hidden on his own person.

He came ready to survive everything. He was prepared to brave the desert for many days whilst he combed its infinite rolls of sand for the lost prince. And he was prepared for a fight should his search find him in the hands of the enemy, dragging him back to be paraded in front of the Niflheim Emperor as a war prize. He had torches to light his way at night and ward off the wicked creatures that roamed the dark. He even had flags to mark his passage should he get lost from Pryna to help her find him.

He was a formidable warrior. Gladio could tell. He knew how to survive any danger that he was faced with. Gladio had seen much and more of that in how he combatted Noctis’s deadly defense the first night they’d met. He was a scrappy combatant, wily and fast, full of tricks and trip-ups. And he never seemed to be absent of energy. They walked for days and he never seemed to tire, never let the desert defeat him.

There were marks on his face, Gladio noticed. Little specks of ink that Gladio vaguely recognized as the marks of a warrior. They were distinct to one nation, he remembered, but couldn’t recall the name. He had read about them in his trips down to the old vaults of history books and scrolls beneath the royal palace between his training. It had sounded a little like his name, his sister used to tease. Maybe that was why he was named what he was. Maybe their mother had foreseen him as being as great of a warrior as the people from those islands.

He didn’t think that was the case. But it had stoked his blood with pride when he was younger and more brazen to believe for a fleeting moment that it could be.

“So, how did you two escape?”

Nyx was loping about the perimeter of their little camp. They’d set up his big tent and forewent the little lean-to of sticks and silks they’d been using beforehand. It was comfortable enough, more room to stretch out and spread sheets to cover the sands. Nyx’s chocobo lapped at a small trough of his reserved water supply – they had plenty of it to spare. They’d sparked up a small fire, nestled down between the dunes to cover them from roving eyes – though they hadn’t seen a soul for days. Nyx had cooked them up more of his spicy yellow soup to warm them through the night.

Gladio instantly saw Noctis stiffen against the question, not wanting to recount it if he didn’t have to. He already had to live with it haunting his dreams and his waking nightmares. Already had to be wary of his fears creating mirages in the desert heat.

“With luck,” Gladio said for him, short and broaching no further argument.

Nyx nodded and didn’t press the subject, continuing his lazy circuit around the campsite, looking for nothing across the silvery hills. The moon shone big and bulging bright overhead, stars glittering like the royal coffers used to. There were reminders everywhere of what they had lost. And in the most unlikely of places. In the sky and how it glittered, in the sands and how they shifted like the silks of their old beds, like the shades of reds and oranges and golds all around them. Gladio saw the pomegranates he used to play catch with Iris with in the sunset. He saw the clay walls of the Shield’s quarters in the yellows of dawn.

He wondered what Noctis saw. He was still quiet, still angry, still grieving in his withdrawn posture. No matter if he was astride the chocobo or walking the sands or sitting tucked beneath their canvas, his shoulders were sloped inward, trying to make himself small enough that the enemy couldn’t find him. That _Gladio_ couldn’t find him. Though the air between them was lighter than when they set out, he still regarded him from a far off distance, unlike the close camaraderie they’d shared since childhood. Noctis still regarded Nyx warily, hated when he asked questions about Insomnia, no matter how important he knew they were.

He was closer with the animals than he was with either man. He tended to the chocobo more than Nyx himself did. He would willingly dismount if he thought he’d ridden it for too long, insist on shelter if he noticed it breathing too hard, made sure it was fed enough of Nyx’s stock of ghysal greens and that there were enough to last them the rest of the way to Cavaugh. He filled its water trough, groomed the sand from its feathers, and obliged it with chin scratches if it kwehed for them.

While Pryna was a different creature altogether, he treated her just as delicately as any other animal. When she would return to rest from her scouting, he would extend an arm for her to fly to. She’d always liked him. As did her mistress. Noctis would run a gentle thumb through the bird’s feathers and sometimes she would preen through his hair in return.

It was only in moments with the animals that Gladio could catch him smiling. They were more innocent than any of them. He’d always been better at taking care of souls smaller than his. He’d always been better at being strong for the things that had no protection themselves. And they didn’t demand anything of them, without voices to do so. They didn’t expect anything of him but some pets and some treats. They didn’t ask him how he escaped or who he lost or how he was dealing with having his whole life torn asunder by a nation powered by greed and twisted black magic.

“What was the plan, then?” Nyx kept asking, always keen to keep the silence from caving in on them.

“Get to Leide,” Gladio said because this was simple enough to answer. “From there, try to earn enough money to make it to Tenebrae. They’ve always been Lucis’s strongest allies. Assuming that hasn’t changed?”

Nyx’s pace slowed a step. Dread dipped low in Gladio’s stomach. Nyx looked as if he was staring further out of the desert than he could see. As if he was looking at Tenebrae itself.

“Tenebrae still stands,” he assured Gladio when he felt the barely contained worry boring into his back. “But Niflheim is inching its hooks into it. There are envoys in the city, trying to negotiate something. No one knows exactly what. They’ve had the ruling family distracted with talks for days. They showed up on the eve of Insomnia’s fall, conveniently enough. No one was going to deny them entry after that.”

Gladio’s jaw tensed, biting down on the slew of curses he wished he could spit in the Emperor’s face for his avarice. Niflheim wanted the world, it would seem. No warning, no negotiating, nothing. Just conquest. They took what they wanted without asking. Gladio never would have thought them bold enough to move on Insomnia though. Not the biggest, strongest city in the world. He thought even less that, should they ever try, that they would succeed in taking it.

The Fleurets were smart to let them in. He tried not to envy them that the Nifs gave them a choice. That they didn’t attack the holy capital first and demand acquiescence later. They were safe for now… But that presented a problem for them.

“There’s nowhere to go.”

Noct’s voice was like a breeze over the sand, barely a whisper of noise in the vacant desert. He stared, unseeing, at the cooling soup in his hands, watching the moonlight gleam across the golden surface. Gladio wondered what he was looking for. If he was using it as a looking glass back onto his past. If he was seeing all that they had lost all at once.

“There’s Cavaugh,” Nyx said, picking up his pace again and withdrawing a dagger to flip boredly through his fingers. “There’s the Marshal and your friends. I’m sure Cor knows someplace you could go. If anything, I could arrange for you all to come back home with me to Galahd.”

That was the place. Ancient islands far off of any coasts, so remote and distant that it was almost regarded as a fable if not for the braided wanderers that traversed the sands to regale strangers with their stories. The wayfarers claimed it was a paradise, full of bursting jungles and rare creatures that prowled amongst the trees. That it was a secret utopia guarded by the soul of a dead god that no one but the native islanders knew the name of.

It was a place wreathed in superstition and tall tales and old truths. Much of it had been forgotten to history or jotted down in the footnotes where everyone forgot it if they did read it. A place so perfect couldn’t be real. It had crystal clear waters and rosy beaches, bountiful rivers of fish and crabs and watery treasures, the way tales told it. The soil was moist and dark and ideal for planting. It was a nation of farmers and fisherman and builders and warriors. No place on Eos could be so bountiful.

The world had seen too much strife, been combed over by too many wars, been picked apart by the vultures of humanity too cleanly for anything so beautiful to remain. But if Nyx’s tattoos were a hint, if they were really the marks that he remembered reading about in his childhood, and he knew the name of this forgotten place… then surely, it must have been real.

“Galahd, huh?” he said, skeptically, just to see if Nyx would rise to the bait and tell him more, tell him proof that this place existed. “That’s an awfully long way.”

“It is. But it’s the last place left that Niflheim hasn’t seemed to touch.” He bumped his boot into a wooden bowl, an old superstition to knock off bad luck. “No one would know to look for you there. You could vanish completely. Settle if you wanted. Or keep going to the uncharted places.”

“I don’t want to run away.”

They both looked at Noctis. His expression had grown pensive, every line growing harder the more he listened to the two men talk. He took a breath and set his soup aside, pressing them both with a cold, almost cruel stare.

“I’m not leaving Lucis behind,” he said. “I’m not running away from Niflheim like some kicked puppy. They _stole_ my home. They’re traitors, murderers, and thieves! I’m not letting them take the rest of my home. I’m not letting them take the same things they took from me from anyone else in Lucis. And I’m not leaving Tenebrae to their mercy, either.”

“Noct, I don’t know that there’s much we can do…”

“There will be! There has to be. Cor will know what to do. He must have allies that he can call on to help us. If the Emperor wanted a war, he should have asked for it. Lucis will stand with us if we get up and fight back. And Niflheim will be the ones running home scared.”

It was folly, but Gladio didn’t know how to tell him that. Insomnia was a devastating blow. It was the beacon of hope for all of Lucis, their center of everything. And with the King gone, so too went the people’s faith. He wasn’t sure that Noctis could inspire the same confidence in the people. He wasn’t as wise as his father, hadn’t earned the people’s favor through a long, benevolent rule.

“I like the way you think, Your Highness,” Nyx said, eyes glinting like clashing blades beneath his cowl.

And if this fool was behind him, they were definitely doomed.


End file.
